3 min readPitted against the Australian heat, ceiling fans can feel pointless. Who among us hasn’t stared up at one and wondered if it was just moving the hot air around while your sweat glues you to the bed? I was in a similar situation, until I got the Haiku I from Big Ass Fans.
Like many of us, my summer usually consists of camping out in front of the air conditioner, but the price of running it is forever seared into my mind. Even now I can hear my dad grumpily turning it off and telling the family that he “isn’t made of money”. I didn’t get it then, but I do now. Electricity prices are going up, as are our average temperatures, but my tolerance for the heat is in a steep decline. When my partner and I bought our place we decided it was time to find a permanent solution. It needed to be cost effective, so another air conditioning unit was out, it needed to stop some of the clutter, so I wasn’t going to buy another pedestal fan, and it actually needed to cool the room. With little other option, I started researching ceiling fans.
That research ended up in a comprehensive guide to picking out a ceiling fan, but practically it left me with more questions. Ceiling fan specs aren’t as universal as say smart phones, or headphones. Many manufacturers just give you the blade span, and whether it is an AC or DC connection. Neither of these pieces of info are necessarily helpful, and after reviewing tech for a while you learn that a sparse spec sheet is rarely conducive to a quality product. What you really need to know is how quickly the fan can circulate air (commonly measured in cubic feet per minute, or CFM), and the RPM. Not many manufacturers actually provide this information, but Big Ass Fans do. It was a green flag.
Another green flag was how many people recommended them. Apart from the hundreds of 5 star reviews, friends and family in Queensland (and to his credit, my partner here in Sydney) cut off conversations with a brisk “just buy a Haiku” multiple times. As a Sydneysider, I trust our northern brethren when it comes to dealing with heat, and I’m glad I did.
Throughout summer the fan entirely replaced the portable air conditioner in the home office. For more than eight hours a day, the Haiku whirred away, turning the otherwise sweltering room into a comfortable environment to actually get some work done. It was installed in January, and even though the price of electricity has gone up, our summer power bill went down year on year. At its max speed the fan only uses 31.1 watts, which equates to around $0.004 per hour. Even if we ran it 24/7, for the whole year, that would only add an extra $38 to the yearly bill. While running a fan through winter might seem counterintuitive, the Haiku has the added benefit of being great at drying clothes.
Clothes dryers are another appliance that I grew up fearing as a money pit. Heat pump technology has helped to alleviate this in some ways, but still that fear is hard to shake. As such during winter I tend to shuffle my clothes horse inside and hope the clothes dry before the mould sets in. During summer however, we discovered just how powerful the Haiku’s 200RPM speed can be. It feels like a cool breeze, which is far better for drying clothes than a still, cold room. As it turns out, the Haiku at full speed will dry a load of laundry in about two hours - five hours less than my dryer’s basic setting, and for a fraction of the cost.
Starting at $865, Big Ass Fans aren’t cheap to buy, and installation costs can get up there too. The high cost of entry was a deterrent for me. I wanted something cost effective, and dropping over $1,000 on a fan when there were plenty of cheaper options was hard to stomach. It was worth it though. Within two years the savings will outweigh the initial cost, but even now it stands as one of the best additions to our home. If you’re looking for a year-round solution to the aussie weather, take the same advice as I did and just buy a Haiku.
